Food for the mind

Each December I celebrate the Christmas holidays by decorating way too many cutout cookies with at least seven different bowls of colored icing, an arduous process demanding hours of concentration bent over a wax-paper-covered kitchen counter that, by the end of the evening, bears some resemblance to a Jackson Pollock drip painting.

This year’s cookie workshop produced pink, purple, and yellow ice cream cones, red, green, and blue ducks, bikini-clad ladies (fashioned from gingerbread men cookie cutters), guitars, palm trees, hearts, stars, multicolored versions of the state of Texas, cardinals, owls, angels, armadillos, dachshunds, pickup trucks carrying freshly cut Christmas trees, and my personal favorite—a paintbrush that conveniently transforms into a broomstick. 

Once the motley menagerie was packaged for various holiday destinations, I set off for New York City to quell my unquenchable thirst for “high culture” and soak in the festive seasonal vibes. Two of my top three highlights were The Hare With Amber Eyes at the Jewish Museum and Hadestown on Broadway, with its colorful cast of characters lured by Persephone deep into the heart of the underworld. But the real reason for my visit was a long overdue solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art featuring the work of Swiss artist Sophie Taeuber-Arp, a pioneer of European abstraction who was very much ahead of her time.

Sophie Taeuber-Arp.

I caught my first whiff of Taeuber-Arp’s work just a couple years ago, by way of my obsession with making “art for daily life.” The name Arp was certainly familiar. Her husband Jean (Hans) Arp was one of the core avant-garde artists responsible for Dada, a satirical, non-rationalist movement formed in Zurich during WWI. I’m a huge fan of Dada, so why hadn’t I heard of Sophie? She was there too, staging performances and absurdist plays, and dancing in the backroom of Cabaret Voltaire with a band of disenchanted poets, painters, and designers hellbent on creating an alternative expression in response to the horrific madness of the war.

Sophie did it all. In addition to being the family breadwinner, she was also a trained dancer and multidisciplinary artist. She created modernist furniture, stained glass windows, and interior designs, illustrated books, and made paintings, sculptures, collages, purses, pillows, and a set of wooden marionette puppets for King Stag, her staging of an 18th-century play.

Taeuber-Arp did not shy away from creating works of art that charmed the eye in addition to stimulating the mind. She was interested in a bold and graceful interplay of geometry, form, and color, and she exercised the potential of basic compositional elements to enrich everyday life. The “intrinsic decorative urge should not be eradicated,” she wrote. “It is one of humankind’s deep-rooted, primordial urges.” Perhaps that’s why I can’t stop myself from dedicating so many hours to the decorative art of Christmas cookies every year. They aren’t “high art,” but they are definitely food for the eyes. And they certainly please the palate.

Here’s to celebrating the contributions of women in all walks of life, and to a color-infused new year!